The present invention relates generally to data presentation and collaboration tools. More particularly, the present invention relates to a real-time sales support and learning tool.
Many environments in business and elsewhere require collaboration and communication between individuals to convey knowledge and information to one of them with the assistance of another. The knowledge recipient has particular requirements and questions that need to be satisfied. The knowledge agent has access to the information and the ability to help solve those questions. Conveying information and getting questions answered is a goal of both parties.
One particular environment where this situation occurs is the retail sales environment. A customer is in need of information about products and services for sale. A sales agent has some information to help answer the customer's questions, but maybe not all the necessary information. The customer's questions may be very general if the customer is new to the field or just beginning the acquire information. If the customer is more knowledgeable, or as the sales transaction proceeds, the customer's questions can become very specific.
An example is retail sales in a home appliance store. Such a store sells a variety of electronics, such as desktop and laptop computers, video systems including televisions and digital video disk (DVD) systems, audio systems, telecommunications systems including cellular and cordless telephones, and durable goods such as laundry systems, refrigerators and ranges. A sales agent in such a store can be expected to sell any of these products or any subset of these products. Each of these product groups presents a different context for customer interaction. Moreover, multiple manufacturers provide products within a product group, presenting other, different contexts for the sales agent. The sales agent can expect the widest range of questions about these product manufacturers, as well. Each customer's level of sophistication presents yet another context to which the sales agent must respond.
Additional challenges face the sales agent in this environment. Products are updated frequently and new features often become available. More and more products and features are converging, such as personal computers with audio and video interfaces, requiring ever broader knowledge by the sales agent. Marketing techniques change too, as product specials are offered to customers or store sales goals are implemented—all of which must be a part of the knowledge base which the sales agent must possess. Moreover, the information must be readily at hand. Customers may not have time or patience to retrieve information from printed sources such as product brochures or from centrally located—and therefore, less convenient—sources such as electronic kiosks and the like. Information should be available in real time, where the customer is located with the sales agent.
On the other hand, labor is one of the largest cost components of any retail business. Increasingly, retailers face high labor turnover rates and short product shelf life. As a result, there is little incentive for retailers to invest heavily in staff training. At the same time, as competition in retailing increases, there is increased emphasis on providing customer service. This calls for knowledgeable sales agents who can respond to the inquiries of the customer in a timely fashion and work to achieve sales and service goals of the retailer as well. In particular, a substantial technical problem is presented by the need to have near-real-time, context-specific information such as product information available for use by the sales agent who may operate in many different contexts and who may not be fully trained about the product and related products and services. The technical problem includes identifying the current context, locating appropriate information and getting the information to the sales agent in a short enough time to be responsive to the customer. The sales agent requires assistance to collaborate with the customer to determine the customer's information needs and fill those needs.
The retail sales environment is just one example of an environment in which such collaboration is required. In other environments as well, two or more individuals need to work together to achieve a common goal such as completing a sale. However, having ready access to necessary information, when the need for that information can arise in a variety of contexts, presents an increasing challenge.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved, context-sensitive collaboration tool for retrieving and conveying needed information in a time-efficient manner.